Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Hot Springs Natoinal Park Quarters Three Coin Set

Later today, the United States Mint will begin sales of the 2010 Hot Springs National Park Quarters Three Coin Set. This will be one of three new product types introduced for the series this month.

Each set contains one uncirculated quarter each from the Philadelphia and Denver Mints, along with a proof quarter from the San Francisco Mint. The three coins are mounted on a plastic card containing a description of the site and coin, along with a certificate of authenticity. Each set is priced at $13.95.

The price of the set is rather steep. To purchase all five releases of this product for the 2010 America the Beautiful Quarters, it would cost $69.75 not including shipping and handling. All fifteen coins included in these sets could alternately be purchased as part of the 2010 Proof Set and 2010 Mint Set at a combined cost of $63.90. Besides the 15 quarters, these sets would also include 15 dollar coins, 3 half dollars, 3 dimes, 3 nickels, and 3 cents.

It might be possible for the America the Beautiful Quarters Three Coin Sets to one day sell at a premium if sales are so restrained that the sets gain attention for having a low production run. Also, if sales are so slow that the US Mint discontinues the product line midstream, the sets may also have the potential to appreciate. This would be similar to the short lived Presidential Dollar Historical Signature Sets.

It will be interesting to see the level of collector interest in this product in next week's sales report.

I don't see anything, other than the 5 oz. silver coins, that will sell for a premium in the ATB series. Most don't know or care about obtaining them. The Mint should have given the quarter series a break for a few years. Twenty years straight is a long time to keep collectors interest in a worthless quarter.

At that price they can keep them! The only extra value added to the set is the plastic card. Instead of paying $69.75 plus the $24.75 shipping ($95.50 total) I will just buy the proof and mint sets ($73.80 total with shipping) and not worry if the plastic card ever adds $11.70 to the value of the yearly three coin sets, not to mention the $16.98 extra coinage fron the proof and mint sets. I have also said many times they should have produced the ATB series on the half dollar. IMO I think it would have produced more interest in a coin that is rarely seen anymore.

I'm going to get the Mint and Circulating sets, but these are completely pointless. I can't even imagine how those interested in certain parks would care about these. A plastic card with the name of the park in small font? Wow! Don't try to one-up the 2009 quarter covers or anything.

Think about it, there are selling these 10 or 11 different ways. How stupid can they get. The only ones I will ever have will be the ones in the Silver Proof Set. The others NO ! But hold on, they might screw up the silver set somehow. Do we even know what the 2011's are supposed to look like and here they are going to have them in January ???????

I like the idea of the ATB Half Dollars. The mint should have given the quarter a break after the SHQ program. However, I believe that the mint will discontinue the Kennedy Half Dollar in 2014 (50 year run) and start the Thomas Edison Series of Half Dollars with rotating reverses. By 2015, we will have rotating quarter reverses, rotating half dollar reverses, and rotating dollar reverses. Talk about some very large and expensive annual sets.

Consider that it costs the Mint 2.5 cents to produce each quarter (7.5 cents for all three), be generous by saying that the packaging costs them a buck, and conclude that their internal cost is $1.075 per package. If the Mint were to sell the 3 coin packaged set for $2.15; that would be a 100% margin net-net for the Mint. Yet, they are selling the 3 coin packaged sets for $13.95 each and the customer pays the shipping. This is a 1,297% net-net margin for the Mint. That's one way to pay down the Federal Deficit.

Nighty night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite, and someone please turn out the light. I'm a goin' back to bed. Wake me in 20 years. Maybe the mint will have run out of pot metal by then and have to make coins out of real metal. Probably not.Yours truly,Rip Van Winkle

The way I understood it, ALL of the satin finish coins would be going away, not just those in the uncirculated coin sets. That means the presidential dollars used in the coin and spouse medal sets would also no longer be satin finish either. Who knows if the Mint will even continue making those after 2010? Sales of them have been pretty low this year, and no one seems to give a crap about them on the secondary market either. Just the 2009's though, the 2007 and 2008 sets still sell for nice markups.

Regardless of whether the 2 Unc quarters in these 3 coin sets are business strike or satin finish, ALL of them can be obtained in the upcoming Circulating and Mint quarter sets and at a better value. So they are definitely unnecessary and redundant from a collector perspective. Personally, I think these are pointless from ANY perspective... collectors won't have any interest and those who would be interested in only a certain park or parks may be turned off by the fact that the packaging offers nothing special or unique to the park (save the quarters themselves).